


so many dreams I've yet to find

by fm1978



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, also leia thinks about democracy and her parents and stuff, they talk about luke but he's not actually there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23730802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fm1978/pseuds/fm1978
Summary: There's a pleasant surprise waiting for Leia when she gets home.April 2020 HanLeia Challenge Prompt: "Home"
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28
Collections: HanLeia Challenge





	so many dreams I've yet to find

She and Mothma were, nine days out of ten, the last people to leave the senate dome. Leia’s heels clicked with every step on the tile floor, while the Chancellor’s footsteps were silent in her delicate silver flats. A cleaning droid beeped a farewell as they exited, and Leia waved, but neither said anything, unwilling to disrupt the still air with their voices. The quiet inside the dome made the noise of Coruscant contrast even more sharply, especially when as they stepped through the dark, tinted double doors, they were swarmed by a crowd of people, most brandishing microphones and holorecorders. Somebody bumped into Leia’s side and she elbowed him hard enough to make him loudly wince, ignoring Mothma’s pointed,  _ “Leia.” _

“My hovercab’s closer, you can ride home with me,” Leia said, low enough that the swarm of reporters wouldn’t be able to hear her over their own voices.

The crowd shifted with them as they kept walking, and although she couldn’t distinguish one question from the next, especially with the mix of languages they were being called in, she did hear a male voice, with a crisp Core world accent, ask, “Princess, do you have any news of the lost Hero of the Rebellion, Luke Skywalker?”

“It’s  _ Senator!”  _ Leia protested, shoving aimlessly through the crowd at the same time that Mothma, ever pragmatic, murmured, “You would think they’d have something better to do.”

“Princess,” a different reporter called, and Leia had a sinking feeling that they were going to ask the question she’d been dodging for weeks again, “Is it true that Luke Skywalker is your brother, and--”

Leia didn’t hear the rest of the question, as they’d reached the hovercab and Mothma gave her an unceremonious shove in. As the Chancellor slid the door shut behind them, Leia leaned forward to her driver, a young Bothan named who’d been scrolling on his commlink and jumped at their abrupt entry, and hissed, “To the Chancellor’s apartment, and quickly, Sehrin.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, shifting the hovercab out of idle gear and pulling back into the stream of traffic, taking a different route than usual. The Emperor’s apartment had been the Penthouse floor of the apartment building many of the senators shared, where even Leia had lived during her short term as rebel senate mole, but Mothma had returned to the apartment she’d occupied back before the rise of the Empire, as senator of Chandrila, in an older, shorter building on the other side of the district. Leia glanced through the back viewport of the cab, and couldn’t bite back her wry smile at the reporters, still lingering despondently at the edge of the duracrete platform.

“What a nuisance they are,” Mothma said, shaking her head. She’d let her hair grow out, but only a little, and now the ends brushed over her ears and along her neck.

“Can we outlaw them?” Leia asked. Once they’d disappeared from sight, Leia let out a long sigh and bent down to pull her heels off.

“Reporters? Absolutely not. Free press is important, Leia.”

“I know that.” She left her heels on the floorboard and swung her feet up onto the seat, curling up against the doorway. “I do wish we could stop them from being so intrusive, though.”

Mothma hummed her agreement, then asked, “Are you going to give a statement about Luke?”

“Soon,” Leia said. She wasn’t happy about it, but it needed to be done. Honesty and transparency were important traits for an elected official to have, according to Mothma, and from what Leia could tell of the Old Republic it had been the keeping of too many secrets that had been their downfall, and she wasn’t going to remake their mistakes.

“Good. That should keep them for a while.”

“What makes you say that?”

Mothma smiled wryly and reached over to squeeze her knee. “I’m not the one they’re interested in anymore. You can stop right up there, Sehrin. Leia, give my regards to your husband, he’s away until the weekend, correct?”

“On Dressel, yes, and I will. Have a good evening, Chancellor.”

Mothma rolled her eyes and got out at the next corner, and Leia and Sehrin waited until she’d entered her building before they drove off. Leia stretched out along the leather seats, feeling the sunlight on the opposite side warm her legs, and said, “Home, please, Sehrin.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he repeated. Leia leaned back against the viewport on her side and allowed her eyes to fall shut. It was a cool day, as cool as it got under control of the strict atmospheric regulators of Coruscant, but as high as they were it was sunny. With her eyes closed, it almost reminded her of early winter days on Alderaan, perched on the window seat in her mother’s study with her body pressed against the warm glass, and her mother always joked that she was like a loth-cat in the sun. The ride took longer than she expected it to, he must have just taken the main loop around the senate district instead of cutting back past the dome and risking extra attention, but soon the cab was gliding to a stop in front of the tall, sleek transparisteel building she called home. Leia didn’t put her shoes back on, just picked them up and stepped into her building with a final wave at Sehrin. 

Her old apartment had been sacked after she was outed as a spy, and even if it hadn’t, it was too closely associated with her father to be anything but a painful reminder, so Mothma had recommended she take the apartment that had belonged to her biological mother, instead, which had sat untouched in the decades after Padme’s death. She’d accepted only at Han’s urging, since he was ready to, in his words, have a permanent base for once, but without him there the place felt vast and empty and haunted by the ghost of a woman Leia had never known except in dreams. Some days she thought she heard the footsteps of a lonely, former queen who lost her life for love, but most of the time it was sad enough with just her rattling around the big space. Still, she had nowhere else to go on such short notice, and when they’d first moved to Coruscant she and Han had spent too many nights intruding in Mothma’s guest room for her to feel comfortable inviting herself back, so she entered the turbolift and pressed the button for her floor. When she keyed in the code to unlock the door, though, instead of the silence she was expecting, there was music playing, and a familiar, much missed voice singing along. There was a pair of scuffed, dusty boots dropped unceremoniously in the entryway, and as she placed her own high heels on the floor beside them, she called out, “Han?”

“In here!” he answered, and her grin only grew as she followed his voice into the kitchen. He’d resumed humming as he stirred, but stopped to chuckle when she stepped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle. “You miss me?”

“You know I did.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt, and she pulled away just enough to press her cheek to his shoulder blade instead. “I thought you were supposed to be on Dressel for the rest of the week.”

“Change of plans. Chewie caught a ride back to Kashyyyk, we’ll meet up again on, Kaminar, I think? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter right now, I don’t have to be there for two weeks.” Han set the spoon down on the counter and turned around to face her, placing one of his hands on her waist. “You think you can put up with that much of me, sweetheart?”

Leia tried to bite her lip to hide her smile, but based on Han’s eager grin she probably looked giddy as a schoolgirl. “It may be a bit of a learning curve, but I think I can get used to it.”

Han gave her waist a quick squeeze, and she reached down to link their fingers but he gently batted her hand away. “Go sit down, this is almost ready. I’ll bring you a plate in a minute.”

It smelled wonderful, and when Han brought her a plate and they sat side by side on the round couch that was built into the apartment floor to eat it, it tasted just as good. Leia had almost cleared her plate and was looking out through the tall curtains over the city, where the sun was just now beginning to dip below the horizon, when Han asked, “So, how was your week?”

“Busy. Today, Mothma and I stayed late, and on our way out we were accosted by reporters asking about Luke.”

“Well, that’s rude of them. Don’t they have anything better to do?”

Leia snorted, covering her mouth with one hand when she nearly choked on a bite. “One would think. He’s good, by the way. My brother’s whereabouts are something I’m willing to share with  _ you _ , you know.”

“Aw, well that’s real sweet of you. He actually called me earlier this week, though. From Ryloth, judging by the frequency.”

“Yes, he found the cutest pair of Twi’lek sisters,” Leia murmured. “Twins, actually. He sent a picture of them all smiling. It was very sweet.”

“Sounds adorable,” Han said, but there was no real heat in his sarcasm. “You know, it’s beginning to look like his job’s a bit more fun than ours is.”

“It does seem that way. I think he’s earned it, though.” She set her empty plate next to his on the caf table in front of them and scooched closer to him, nestling into his side. “Why did you get to come back so soon?”

“Wrapped up early,” Han said. “Ackbar would’ve had me stay a couple of extra days, get some more done, but I missed you.”

Leia felt the tension she’d been ignoring unravel, and a warm, safe feeling settle in her stomach in its stead. “I missed you too. This place just doesn’t feel the same without you.”

“Yeah. The Falcon’s been my home for nearly half my life, but it's a lot lonelier without you there. Even with Chewie,” he added as an afterthought, making her smile against his sleeve. He lifted the arm she was leaned against to wrap around her shoulders and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “Somewhere, between all those shitty rebel bases--”

“They weren’t  _ that _ bad.” Well, not all of them were.

“--and this bizarrely fancy apartment--” at her snort, he added, “With all due respect, sweetheart, I don’t love having furniture I don’t feel like I’m allowed to use.”

“That was most of the furniture where I grew up.”

“I know, I know, and your royal mother and father loved you very much but it probably would’ve been good for you to have a couch you could jump on.” She rolled her eyes at Han’s irreverency, which she appreciated, because he was the only person she could really talk to about them at all without receiving far too much sympathy, while he continued undeterred, “Anyways, what I guess I’m trying to say is that somewhere between the apparently-not-as-bad-as-I-remember bases and this place, my home became you.”

The truth of his statement rang in the force, and it was easy for Leia to answer, “You’re my home too.”

“You think we could maybe go furniture shopping, though? I  _ am  _ here for two weeks.”

“You know, I think we’ll be able to make time.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from Carole King's "So Far Away"


End file.
